Silent Seemings
by Pond Lilly
Summary: Jeb's in trouble, but he does one last thing to help the flock, he creates another bird child with a new feature, half of her brain is a computer. Giga's illusions may help Iggy to see but what will happen when ghosts from her past start haunting the floc
1. Appearing

_**I do not own anything that has to do with Maximum Ride, but Giga was my idea. James Patterson owns the rest.**_

_**Now that I've finished that. Yeah I know the chapter is short but this is the only way I can update consistently so sorry. Hope you like it anyway!**_

_**~Lilly **_

Giga:

Well he said there were six of them: check. He said the eldest girl would be in charge: definitely check. So why was I surprised when the littlest girl, who he said could read minds, looked directly at me? Naturally I had no answer for that, but I also had no answer for the next thing that happened: she looked really confused and turned back around, facing the fire like she had been before. I wish I was closer so I could tell what she said when the older girl asked her what she was looking at, but her words, whatever they were blew, soundlessly past my ears.

But I was only burning with curiosity with one part of my brain, a tiny back corner; the rest was wondering why she didn't call me out of my poor hiding spot? Was this what the man, Jeb said about how I needed to make sure "you aren't seen by Flyboys or any of the workers at Itex, not that it will be hard for you to do that." Did he make me invisible, no he couldn't have, how was I supposed to help them if they couldn't see me? Of course I was hardly a skeptic about anything.

I was temporarily sidetracked when I noticed one of the older boys was busy typing on a laptop. Excellent! I was afraid I was going to have to quit my Critic section on an online newspaper I belonged to.

Well Jeb said I would be able to fashion illusions, so maybe it was time to tell them I was here. I figured I'd show he guy with the laptop and the head lady, they would do for now. I began muttering the commands Jeb said would set up the illusions the first few times. Then decided what they would see. But the other older boy was twitching, he could hear me I was sure of it, but how? My voice was almost muted. None of them looked my way though.

I pressed the mental on switch for the illusion and let them see me walking out of the woods, about two yards from where I was and prepared to get up.

Their heads snapped around at the same time to face where I told them I'd be coming from and the others stopped moving altogether. Miz Prez and Laptop Guy scanned the empty woods for a few seconds then turned back around; reassuring the others I was almost positive. But their movements were slight and jerky, their backs tense; they were both ready to defend their rag tag group when I appeared.

Truthfully that idea was not the most comforting I'd ever come up with, but education was one of the few things I remembered from past two months ago and I'd have five years of the Study of Body Language on my résumé which was weirdly long for a thirteen year old. So those little signs were glaringly obvious to my carefully trained eye.

Of course that was one more thing to add to the list of reasons why I should just turn around right now while I still could, which really meant while they still didn't know I was hanging out, because I didn't really have anywhere to go so it was here or some cardboard box in some ally. So I sucked in a big breath and took the few steps necessary to be where I'd been in the illusion I'd shown them.

I was very careful not to step on any lose roots or twigs and not just because, like in the movies it would snap and I would be tackled in a matter of seconds, which really would be unpleasant, but also because I'd been going barefoot for the past three hours and it would really hurt if I stepped on something sharp right now. As it was I have a nice sized blister.

I pulled back one of the lower branches and saw them sitting around the fire, bright gold embers crackling up. Picture perfect, a real Kodak moment in its entire gag inducing beauty, a real patch work family, stitched together unevenly, some pieces closer than others, but all connected. For some reason I couldn't quite remember that made my stomach roll.

I almost left then. There was no room for me in that family. I was in no place to walk out there and expect them to except me into their already perfect family. After all I couldn't even remember my parents' hair color, what did I have to bring into this family? Nothing, it was more than I could stand, knowing that. But I had to weight in starvation, being the outcast, starvation, being the outcast, starvation… I could probably find food, but that uncertainty was just a little unnerving, so… I could always leave later if I couldn't stand being the outcast. Choice made.

I took a couple of experimental steps out into the open. There was no response except a slight tightening in the shoulders of the two who were expecting me. Well that was a good sign. "Hello," I said experimentally.

They spun around so fast I narrowly missed my opportunity to slide to the side. "Hold on a second!" I pleaded hands up, "I'm like you guys!" I insisted letting my wings slip out from between my shoulders. "See?" I said turning around and flapping my wings a few times, before letting them pull back into my shoulders.

"Who are you?" the girl asked when I turned back around.

"Well my name is Giga if that's what you mean or that's at least what he called me."

Before I could ask what her name was she was speaking again, "He who?" the set of her mouth was confusing, she looked almost worried, not outwardly, there she'd put on a brave slightly annoyed mask, but her body language said she was a little on edge I concluded with a slight examination.

"He said you knew him."

"Did he tell you his name?" she asked really annoyed now.

"Jeb," I said, expecting a wave of realization when there was none something pulled at the edge of my memory, "Oh yeah I was supposed to show you that! One minute please!" I said sitting cross-legged right where I was and shut my eyes.

12-25-17-087-1400-6-231-3-70-4-11-156721-765-8-97-6-9-65-34-8-5-5453-45-256, the numbers swam in front of my eyes as I mouthed them and pushed the internal play button and opened my eyes. Just as I opened them their gazes glazed over and the older boy with red hair gasped and almost fell over.

That was unexpected.

"So you've got a computer brain?" the oldest girl asked.

So that's what the illusion was about? I wonder why Jeb didn't let me see it.

"Half of one."

"I guess you'll be around for a while then?"

"If it's ok naturally…" I trailed off.

She nodded and turned her back to me.

She was gesturing to each of her companions and in turn they were nodding with solemn faces, even the littlest girl who couldn't be much older than five.

"And I'm Max," she concluded, "Did you get all of that?"

"All of what?" I asked confused.

"Everyone's names," Max said slowly.

"You had your back to me how could I have?"

"You mean you couldn't hear me with my back turned?"

What any odd question. "No of course not."

Someone directly in my range of sight whispered, "Are you deaf?"

For some reason that made me mad. With a grim set face I answered, curling up my hand into a fist and pulling it down once and back up, the hand sign for yes. I didn't stop there though I pointed to myself and finger spelled the rest of the words in: _Yes, I am deaf._


	2. Doubt

Max:

Well isn't that just our luck? The computer brain can't hear. "How'd you know what I said before then?" I challenged.

"I'm not completely helpless," the girl, Giga, bridled, "I've gone to a deaf school since I was eight and I _can_ lip read, as long as you're facing me I can see what you're saying, I don't need my ears to carry on a conversation."

"Well then, I guess we need to redo our introductions to fit the deaf girl." She glared at me.

"Angel, Gasman, Nudge, Iggy, Fang and me, Max," I said pointing to each of us and then turned, "Ang, she telling the truth?"

Angel shrugged. How could she not know? She could read minds and she wasn't sure she was telling the truth. "We'll just have to watch her for a while then." The flock gave no indication that I had said anything, which was good because if her eyes were as good as Iggy's ears were we might have a problem. "Ig you'll probably be able to get closer to her then any of us, watch her, talk to her, and get her to slip up."

I turned to face Giga again; she had a deep frown set on her face to greet me, great she knew we were keeping secrets, "Iggy'll show you the ropes…"

"Yeah, you're deaf I'm blind it works out," Iggy said, bless him! She perked up like a wilted flower, smile spread wide across her thin face. Of course Iggy wasn't done amazing me yet, "Except when you showed us that thing I saw that."

She grinned, "Really?" she asked excitedly at the she time I did.

"Yeah," Iggy said shrugging. She leaped up then muttering something I couldn't make sense of.

"Can you see that?" she asked.

"Yeah, is that me?" Iggy asked.

"Yep," she said, looking two seconds away from jumping up and down, clapping wildly, and giggling. I hope I get to watch.

"Hey!" Iggy said, "It's gone!"

"It's new to me I can't kept a illusion up for more than a couple seconds, come on let's practice," she said dancing around him now she grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the woods she'd just left.

"So Angel why can't you know if she's lying?" I asked when they were out of sight.

"Her mind…" Angel started, "It works weird… I can't understand her thoughts. She thinks in numbers I don't understand."

"That is weird."

I don't think she's lying though," Fang added.

"What do you mean?"

"The way she acted," Fang said, "I don't think that could be staged. Besides they would have to sink pretty low to try to use kids again, remember last time? I don't think she's lying about being deaf either, she was too mad when you called her deaf."

"We'll keep that in mind."

Fang shrugged.

"This means we're counting totally on Iggy," I said.

"I know, I know we shouldn't but what choice do we have?" Fang said, being infuriatingly logical "Besides it's really unlikely that she knows how to fight better than him." Fang had a point sadly.

We pretty much sat around waiting for Iggy to come back. We were all stages of anxious. Angel was probably the worst, because she couldn't understand the patterns of numbers Giga thought in she knew that Giga could be lying through her teeth to us and Angel knew it. I probably wasn't much better, but there were not mirrors leaning against any of the trees so I'm not sure how I looked.

Iggy returned for dinner trailed by a rather upset girl.

"You haven't taught him to read Braille!" she demanded

"We don't even know Braille, are you going to eat?" I said, making sure to face her.

She sat down after an extended hesitation, "What am I eating?"

"We still have some hot dogs _**(I really couldn't bring myself to make him say anything more likely)**_," Fang said, digging in the pack and pulling out a half empty pack of hot dogs, conveniently forgetting to look at her.

"Is it so hard to say 'hot dogs'," she demanded as Fang handed them out.

Fang turned, "I did."

"Oh," she said, becoming silent. She sat there for a few minutes playing with the spit (aka stick) Nudge gave her to cook her hot dog with Iggy trying to talk to her. Something past by her face quickly, it wasn't even there for a second so I couldn't decide whether it was irritation at Iggy for trying to talk to her when she clearly wasn't in the mood to chit-chat or hurt that we clearly didn't trust her to even tell the truth about being deaf. Maybe both, but it was gone as soon as it came and she shut her eyes, weird reaction.

She finished her hot dog quickly and walked into the woods.

"She telling the truth Ig," I asked when she was gone.

"I think she is," Iggy said, "she was thrilled that she could help me see, she was all but jumping up and down, and then she decided to teach me to read Braille when she found out that I didn't know how to."

"Well what are we gonna do?" Gasman asked.

"Let her stay I guess, but I still think she's hiding something."

"Aren't we all?" Fang challenged, "I'll go find her."

_**Max is more right than she imagines, of course you'll have to keep reading to find out what exactly is up with the newest member of the flock. Who by the way is a runaway characterization project. What do I mean? Well, Giga, when I first came up with the idea of a computer brain was not deaf and she couldn't show you illusions. And when I decided she was deaf I also decided she wasn't born deaf along with a long history that you will hear about later. And I'll tell you now that's going to be a fun chapter to write.**_

_** ~Lilly **_


	3. Reasoning

_****_

I love going into Giga's mind, I might just have to drop the other Max POV chapters to write totally in Giga's POV. I know I probably won't, but that doesn't mean I won't think about it.

~Lilly

Giga:

They thought I was lying, they thought everything I said since they first saw me was a story. They thought I was lying. It bothered me terribly but I didn't know why, they weren't trusting, so what so were a lot of people, but it really bothered me that _these_ people didn't trust me. They thought I was lying. Something on the edge of my splintered memory told me this had happened before, someone hadn't believed, it _hurt_, but it was the first thing I remembered from farther than two months earlier (besides my education) so I tried to cling to it.

When Jeb explained he used words that meant nothing to me, but boiled down to one thing, amnesia. When we got into the wreck my head smashed into something hard at such a force that my brain began to expand, I was in critical condition by the time the helicopter came, I was in better condition than my parents though, they both died instantly upon impact. They had to remove three square inches of my skull so my brain would have room to expand, but I went comatose before they even had me hooked up to all the machines in the hospital.

They thought about just letting me go. I had no other family that they could find, so what would be the point? Who would take me if I woke up? Why keep a girl with no one fighting for her, no one praying for her alive on machines when they could be used on someone with a fighters chance and someone to help them get though it. But Jeb was there for whatever reason and said he'd like to try to wake me up. They told him to go ahead and try to reanimate the corpse. He took me home and got to work on me.

He kept me heavily sedated even though I was out like a light and assessed the damage; they'd already stopped the bleeding in my liver and patched up the lung that was punctured with my rib, so the biggest obstacle was the fact that I had very little brain activity, so that's where he started.

He decided the right side of my brain was in the worst shape and decided that was where he was putting my computer. The left would be stimulated by electrical pulses from the computer.

He also decided to try something risky; the body is built to protect itself, so if my immune system was weak enough the body would accept anything that _might _help, even foreign DNA, in theory of course.

After implanting my computer he sedated me again and shot me up with something that would weaken my immune system even more weak than it already was and injected me with the alien DNA.

It worked better than he ever expected, in days I started growing wings and anything that he could never have fixed were getting better and I was started to respond. One month after I'd been declared brain dead I woke up.

The more I try to force myself to remember who hadn't believed me, what had happened, the more it slipped away, the less real it seemed, the less significant; I struggled with my mind trying to force away the cloud that blocked out all of my past. It wasn't working and I let it go with a loud sigh.

That was the first time I realized someone was looking for me. I don't know how I missed it; he was only opening and closing his mouth every few seconds, which should have gotten my attention, yeah right. He was about two inches from my hand and I dimly remembered Jeb telling me I wouldn't have a problem hiding.

I decided to throw him a bone. I jumped out pushing him sideways "I was right there," I told him, "For however long you were trying to find me by yelling, I was right here."

I barely jostled him, he was a little surprised though, and he started to say something, but I turned before he could get out one word, "I don't feel like talking," I said, walking deeper into the brush, "leave me alone."

He didn't listen to me through, I might not be able hear the crunch of leaves behind me, but I had a highly developed sense of being followed, whenever that's called, and it was as strong as it ever was. I was willing to bet that if I hadn't put my shoes back on I would feel the deadened vibrations of his steps. I absolutely detested shoes, but putting them on was a habit, I obviously couldn't go to school bare-foot.

I hadn't walked more than two steps when he grabbed my arm and spun me around. I don't really know why but I shrieked, using lots of air, my measure of volume, at that, yanked my arm out of his grip and whirled around. It was only than that I realized my arm stung slightly where he had grabbed me. I wondered how hard his grip was, it really didn't register, in fact the only thing that did was that irrational fear that caused me to cry out, and I didn't really understand that at all either. I leaned heavily against the tree, feeling drained and sank till I was sitting down, "Sorry about that," I said turning my head toward him.

"What was that about, I know you can't really appreciate this but you can be very loud," he said.

"So I've been told, but I believe there is a similar saying that goes something like, 'You have a set of lungs on you' and _that_ I can identify with. As for your question, I have no idea," I admitted very reluctantly, not sure if I wanted to admit how bad my current state of mind was, "but I don't think you should try to force me to look at you anyway."

"No kidding," he said, but I could be perfectly sure how he meant it because his face was more closed then most others, it was annoying. Of course I could kind of tell, this was where five years in a deaf school really helped, but I didn't have anything concrete which I wasn't used to. I wasn't going to ask him to help me in that area; this was a chance for practical experience, which was always good.

"So why are you out here?" I asked cutting to the chase.

He shrugged, "To get you."

"I can find my way back you know,"

"I bet but still…" he trailed off and I realized what he meant a minute too late, they would feel better if they kept tabs on me.

"Fine," I said faking indifference, sticking to the 'deaf monotone' I'd developed somewhere along these past five years, at least I think I did, I enunciated the word drawing out my breath slowly, evenly along the word with no extra air exiting my mouth at anytime, that was as close to sure as it got unless I was in front of a mirror. Anyway I turned around again and went back to where they'd set up camp.

He didn't bother me anymore so I was free; way too free, to think about how much he'd seen on my face, how much I'd given away, but on the up side there were no weird outbursts all along the way.

It wasn't long before we were back, and the wariness of this ragtag bunch was rolling off in near visible waves. Maybe I should have mentioned it; I mean anybody who just happened across this campsite would notice the tension right now. I didn't though; I pretty much just sat down and was silent, everyone was, it was like they were all waiting for someone to say something, but no one did.

Eventually I felt a routine restart; Fang and Max started to settle the youngest three of the six of them in for the night, tucking them into their sleeping bags and saying goodnight, the perfect family, a mom, a dad, three little kids, and two misfits, Iggy who wasn't a kid, but wasn't treated equally by Max and Fang, they all treated him carefully, with only a few slip-up that I'd noticed this short first day. They let him cook, and he told me he liked to blow things up, but I still wondered if he knew exactly how much they hovered over him, watching him, sheltering him, it made my stomach churn to think about all the things they wouldn't allow him to do that he could. He fit in better than the other misfit though, me. I was patched up and not completely flesh-and-bone and I couldn't remember my real name or anything else about me. They were together most of each others lives and I had been here less than a day. I didn't fit _at all_ and I knew it.

I lied down after awhile, letting my mind slip away to happier moments.

_**Kind of short I know, but I don't know what else to put in unless Giga decides to eavesdrop on the conversation in the next chapter, which would make that chapter shorter, it's a lose-lose. I'm thinking about writing a Mediator fanfic so most likely I'll be gone for twice as long as usual so I can write two chapters and start the other story.**_

_**~Lilly**_


End file.
